


i'll be there too

by birlcholtz (justwhatialwayswanted)



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: M/M, excessive linebreaks, i tried to be soft, inhalers as a representation of the heart, nursey being clumsy, nursey is/was asthmatic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-29
Updated: 2016-10-29
Packaged: 2018-08-27 16:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8408197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justwhatialwayswanted/pseuds/birlcholtz
Summary: Derek doesn't think breathlessness is romantic.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WOW I actually wrote something! I've been meaning to write something for Nurseydex for for-absolutely-ever so this is great.

Derek doesn’t think breathlessness is romantic.

He never has. When there are passages in books or poems about breath being stolen away by beauty or by kisses all he can think of are nights years ago, waking up and not being able to breathe. He’s never written about it, even.

Fortunately he grew out of his asthma. He hasn’t had an attack since a few months before his fourteenth birthday, but Derek still remembers the feeling, and his inhaler lives under his pillow. Just in case.

 

When he arrives at Samwell, when they get their first win of the season, Derek— now Nursey— is almost deafened by the sound of his teammates’ roaring, somehow summoned up past pounding heartbeats and panting breaths. He sits on the bench and breathes slowly, in and out. Hall gives him a concerned look but Nursey grins at him and he turns back to the rest of the team.

 

Dex and Bitty know about his inhaler. Bitty because it’s impossible to keep anything from him, and Dex because he found it when he was tossing Nursey’s pillowcase into the pile of things to be washed because someone (Nursey maintains it was Dex, although he knows it probably wasn’t) spilled a Coke on it.

“I used to have pretty bad asthma attacks,” Nursey says from his seat atop his desk.

“Oh, okay.” Dex removes the pillowcase and puts the bare pillow back on top of the inhaler, seemingly without thinking about it. “You’d better hope you don’t need to wash the pillow too, that was a pretty bad spill. Nice job, by the way.”

“Shut  _ up, _ Poindexter.”

 

Even though he doesn’t need the inhaler, Nursey still needs it, in a sense. It’s comforting to be able to slip his hand under his pillow and feel it there. A reminder that he’s prepared.

This point has never been so evident as this roadie his sophomore year.

“Fuck,” Nursey mumbles, digging through his bag in the hotel room. It must still be in his dorm. Dex is already asleep so he’s rummaging in the dark, having tried and failed to fall asleep for the past forty-five minutes or so.

He hears sheets being pushed back and Dex’s bed creaks (they were  _ not _ made for six-plus-feet college hockey players) before Dex says, in a voice so slurred with sleepiness that Nursey can hardly pick out the words, “Outside pocket on my duffel bag.”

“Did I wake you up? Shit, sorry, man.”

“Your inhaler,” Dex says, sounding more alert. “It’s in the outside pocket on my duffel bag. I checked to see if you’d remembered it before we left. Turns out you hadn’t so I grabbed it for you.”

“Oh.” What is he supposed to say to that? “Thanks.”

“Got your back,” Dex replies, and the bed creaks as he lies back down. “G’night.”

The inhaler is there, bundled up securely in a Ziploc sandwich bag that says ‘NURSEY’ in Sharpie on the front. Nursey actually flips the bag over, looking for a sarcastic addition that would be entirely characteristic of Dex, but he doesn’t find one.

 

Weeks later, Nursey picks up his pen and writes a poem.

  
It’s still not romantic. When Dex kisses him, it’s soft, it’s easy, he never has to catch his breath because it’s as easy and simple and right as breathing. The inhaler is still under his pillow, but he doesn’t check for it there.

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on tumblr: birlcholtz.tumblr.com


End file.
